What, How & Why? Building technical behavior

What are you building technically?

How are you building it?

Why is it important to do so?

How do you practice? What are you practicing? Why are you doing that?

Do you know the difference between warming up and building technical behavior? Why do you do one and/or the other?

Let’s start here. I find it so very important to really understand the athleticism of what we do as singers. Just because we can’t SEE it, doesn’t mean it’s not athletic! Our body is our instrument, and so the body reveals what the voice needs.

Warming up is literally that. Warming up breath, muscles, ligaments, soft tissue so things move and stretch. THROUGHOUT the body, not just larynx up! Warming up the body is crucial and then warming up the vibration of our voice within that body is all done FIRST. This should happen before you start working on technical building. This should happen before you do a work session of repertoire; before an audition; before a performance.

Why? Because otherwise, you are trying to make ridiculous adjustments on the fly. WARM UP!! Stretch!! Give your body and your voice the respect it deserves and just do it.

Look at any athlete in other arenas: dancers warm up before a class, before a show; team players in sports warm up before a practice, before a game; solo athletes warm up before a race/competition/workout session/match.

Warm up is NOT technical or skill building. Don’t confuse this. Warm up is what happens FIRST and ALWAYS. It allows us to observe how the body is responding today. There is no value judgement EVER. Just observe. Then add the voice to that warm up and that stretch. How is the voice responding to the body? Observe what your voice is trying to tell you about the body and find those warm ups that do what you need - what YOU need - to access your physicality as comfortably and as balanced as possible.

Do you think athletes warm up and notice a tight hamstring and run screaming “I can’t ever do XYZ again!”

We laugh, but think about singing: We often mistake what the voice is trying to tell us about the body as a flaw. It’s not. It is just letting you know you might want to stretch this over that, or massage this, or elasticize that. Let’s not get into the neurosis so quickly. You WILL sing again!

Some days, all you have time for is a short warm up. Is it still helpful? ABSOLUTELY! It keeps the instrument accessible.

Then what?

You aren’t going to work out, build technical behavior or stylistic behavior before an audition, a performance or even if you are working on your music. (I mean, you could if you are going to work on music but I digress!).

Your “what, why, how” of building that instrument is athletic. Now we get into the nitty gritty of what YOUR body needs, and subsequently, what your breath and vibration needs.

After you have grounded and warmed up, then it’s about creating the behavior of neutral voice. This is the barre work if you are a dancer - it’s all about form and alignment. There is no style yet. This is like skill drills in sport. This is form. This is integration of physicality, breath and vibration.

Are your cords closing throughout your registration? Are you strengthening that physical balance regularly? If you aren’t getting balanced closure, you are manipulating.

Are you over-blowing your air? holding or stacking your breath? Are you discovering how to balance this in every area of your voice? This is something we all need to observe and discover DAILY. SERIOUSLY.

I remember, even as a pianist, when I had a difficult passage, my teacher would say “do it again and exhale”. Hmmm, who knew?

How’s your middle voice? Are you working on creating balance here? This is crucial. Beyond crucial. This is EVERYTHING!

Now, we begin to balance middle voice outward - working through weight transfers, intensity of core of voice, balance of resonance, (and this all assumes anchored tonal centers et al - if not, go back to neutral voice work and get back to the barre!). Many of us could use regular barre work…just sayin;

Just like using weight for resistance training in the gym, so we must for our vocal instrument. Working for endurance using resistance exercises and suspension exercises vocally, is crucial for developing stamina and balance of resonance, and shape, color and power descending and ascending. You don’t start with the highest weight! You start with form. You start with lower weight until you can lift, release and anchor.

As the resistance/suspension strengthens, always from the middle voice outward, we can focus on specific tessitura balances and passaggio balances - which allows for physical releases and elasticity and ease of tone.

We then can work into specifics for legato singing vs movement ability as well as larger interval leaps maintaining balance of resonance and release. We need both just like we need hamstrings and quads or biceps and triceps!

As we work into more specifics vocally, we are discovering more technical significance and specificity to allow us to access more demands with ease.

This is just a beginning! I want to simply give you a template to play with and make yours and to discover what you might already be doing and not even realizing it! The more you are clear about what, how and why you do what you do to build technical behavior, the more that behavior will stabilize and be available to you at will and the more detailed you can get, because you aren’t worried about how you sound. You are focused on what you are doing!!

Enjoy the discoveries, and leaning into observing the voice a little bit differently. Find the athletic mentality and physicality that you need to find behavior. Recognize where you are and start there. You are only in competition with your previous self. Every win, no matter how big or small, is always a WIN.

Ask questions, and discover the answers for your athleticism and your technical behavior.

with fondness & fierceness,